


Four Times a Lazarus

by edfh26



Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Black Panther (2018) Spoilers, Bucky Barnes-centric, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America: The First Avenger, M/M, POV Bucky Barnes, Post-Black Panther (2018), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), World War II, i don't know her, linear plot?, literally the definition of writing the fic you want to read, not rated for sex, pre avengers infinity war, unfortunately
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 17:00:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13745391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edfh26/pseuds/edfh26
Summary: Bucky Barnes, from birth to death to birth again (and again).





	Four Times a Lazarus

**Author's Note:**

> Check me out on tumblr @equal-and-opposite-reactions

The Wakandan style of medicine is a strange mix of blinding white modernity and ancient, ancient healing, but Bucky finds it a comforting difference from what he’s used to. He meets T’Challa once again several days after waking in a hut covered in bright red dirt, while being fitted by the princess with a new vibranium arm. The young king, dressed in black, looks at him with something like remorse in his eyes. Bucky wishes he could express how very un-offended he was that T’Challa had spent several days trying his damnedest to kill him, but settles by giving what he hopes is a polite smile.

 

No one has so much as mentioned Steve yet.

 

Bucky wants to ask, so strongly that the words almost force their way out of his mouth, but between years of training in how to impersonate a diplomat and time-worn memories of being scolded into being a polite guest by his Ma, he manages to bite his tongue.

 

“How are you, Sergeant Barnes?” T’Challa asks, peering curiously at the arm. Seemingly unconsciously, the king reaches out to touch it, only to have his hand slapped away by his sister, who mutters something disparaging in Xhosa.

 

“Good,” he says, same as he had to Shuri. “But please call me Bucky, if you don’t mind. I ain’t a Sergeant anymore.”

 

“As you wish,” T’Challa says with an amused quirk to his lips. 

 

“Flex your fingers,” Shuri says. He does, but the lag is just a millisecond longer than it was with the old arm. The princess tsks and opens another panel in the arm.

 

“Your Captain,” T’Challa says suddenly, after a few minutes of silently watching his sister work. Bucky’s head snaps up. “He left Wakanda several days after you were placed into cryofreeze.”

 

“To go after his friends,” Bucky says.

 

T’Challa nods. “The archer and the Ant-man have returned to their respective families in America and are under FBI watch. Scarlet Witch appears to have made her way back to the Avengers Compound at some point. I do not know where the Captain and the Falcon are, but I assume they are together. There is a trail of busted crime rings crossing the globe. Several of the dregs of HYDRA have gone up in smoke as well.”

 

“You can’t find them?” Bucky asks.

 

“I could,” T’Challa says. “I trust he will return on his own, now.”

 

“Ah,” Bucky says eloquently. T’Challa stares, looking weary beyond his years for a moment.

 

“I must admit I came here with a question,” he says after a long moment. Shuri stills beside Bucky.

 

“Go ahead,” Bucky sighs.

 

“Would you kill him?” T’Challa asks, looking as if the question means a lot to him and he’s trying to hide it. “If the choice came between his life or the life of an innocent.”

 

“If Steve gets it into his head that something is righteous, there ain’t a lot that can stop him,” Bucky says after a moment. “I could. If necessary.”

 

“He wouldn’t kill you,” T’Challa says.

 

“He wouldn’t,” Bucky confirms. “Not then.”

 

T’Challa sighs and nods, then gives a short bow and turns to leave. Shuri says something to him in Xhosa, concerned, and he waves her off. 

 

“Your Highness,” Bucky calls, feeling for once in possession of the right words. The king turns around. “I would also die, a thousand more times, if it meant avoiding that outcome.”

 

The king nods, looking tired and resigned, and takes his leave.

 

Xxxx

 

He has never, to his admittedly limited knowledge, been alone in his own head.

 

The Soldier still lurks in the recesses and shadows as he always did, but now a new, or maybe old, presence is there as well. Bucky Barnes remembers cold Brooklyn nights and pale blue eyes amid the swirling vortex of faceless memories that wash over him at all times, ceaseless and insistent.

 

He is not The Soldier and he is not quite Bucky Barnes. He is somewhere in between, hidden in the grey middle distance, a silent observer to the turmoil around him, but he still calls himself Bucky, in his head, a single comfort that he leaves himself even though it feels like robbing a dead man’s grave.

 

He had gone to the museum in DC, even though his instincts had screamed in protest. He had looked at videos of a dead man wearing his face and felt a wary sort of acceptance, and then he had gone back to icy Eastern Europe. He lives quietly, for the most part, moving house and changing names every few weeks. If HYDRA agents turn up dead from time to time, then... the cause of death is always varied, always looking like an accident.

 

Another allowance to himself. Bucky Barnes thinks it’s only fair, and The Soldier bays, howling for more.

 

At least the others in his head are more or less characters of his own making, this time. Bucky is once again learning to accept small victories.

 

Xxxxx

 

“Steve Rogers,” Shuri says, one afternoon, while she is having him throw punches at Black Panther suits. He’s trying to work out a way to hold himself so he doesn’t get knocked on his ass every time, and hasn’t managed it yet.

 

“What about him?” Bucky breathes, forcing himself off the floor.

 

“He is pretty, for a white boy,” she says. “Like a movie star.”

 

“I think he might be a little too old for you, Princess,” Bucky jokes.

 

Shuri scoffs. “Don’t play dumb. He is not my type.”

 

“Oh?” Bucky laughs. “What is?”

 

“Black Widow,” she sighs faux dreamily. Bucky’s face, with no permission, flushes red. Shuri laughs.

 

“You are adorable, White Wolf,” she giggles. “It is 2018, these things are accepted now.”

 

Bucky doesn’t think he’s been called adorable in his entire life and doesn’t know how to feel about it. 

 

“Am I right?” Shuri asks.

 

“We weren’t anything but friends,” Bucky says quietly after a moment.

 

Shuri hears the words left unspoken and drops the subject in an unspoken display of tact. Bucky manages to only stumble the next time he hits the suit. 

 

Xxxx

 

One of the operatives he kills in Serbia recognizes him. Bucky blows his brains out before he can say anything more than _ hello, soldat. _

 

It’s a sloppy kill, no way to make it look accidental, but it’s done now. He leaves the body where it is, in a shitty hole of an apartment strewn with old newspapers and empty bottle, then places a trail of breadcrumbs leading back to a gambling ring the HYDRA agent had managed to piss off and spends a month in Azerbaijan. 

 

Xxxx

 

“I like it here,” Bucky says to T’Challa. They are standing on a balcony, facing the mountains. The sun rises, painting pink streaks across the purple sky.

 

“Wakanda is beautiful,” T’Challa agrees. “We are blessed.”

 

“I’m going to leave soon,” Bucky says softly. “It is not my home.”

 

“You cannot return to New York,” T’Challa says, seeming mildly indignant. “You would be arrested on sight.”

 

“I was only born in Brooklyn,” Bucky says thoughtfully. “In 1917. I was also born in Germany in 1942, and in Russia in 1945, in DC in 2014. Here, in 2017. 100 years after Brooklyn. I haven’t been home in a long time, but I’d like to try and find it.”

 

“Ah,” T’Challa says, understanding. “Then I will provide anything you require, on the condition that you return, eventually. My sister likes you.”

Bucky smiles, and is surprised to find that the expression doesn’t feel quite as foreign anymore. “Do you have guns?” he asks. “I haven’t been trained very much in using a spear.”

“I’m sure we have something,” T’Challa says, though his expression shows his distaste.

Xxxx

Bucky Barnes is standing in a bar, Steve standing at his side. His body aches down to his bones and he is hungry, starving, unable to feel full. He is trying to chase away the feeling with alcohol and failing. 

Carter appears looking like an omen, dressed in red from her lips to her stilettos. Bucky flirts with her, half-heartedly, and is unsurprised when her eyes are only for Steve.

“It’s like a horrible dream,” he says, and means it in some way. Steve says something else, probably jokes it off, but all Bucky feels is the crushing need to escape. This what he’d wanted, for Steve to be healthy and for Steve happy and get married and have a white picket fence and a couple of little kids with blue eyes. And yet here he is, being angry and jealous and hungry, so  _ hungry _ —

Xxxx

Not without difficulty, Bucky tracks Steve and Wilson to Guadalajara. Wakanda’s considerable resources make the process easier, and Captain America was never meant to be a spy, but he still finds himself reluctantly impressed with the thoroughness that they have managed to cover their tracks.

“Don’t lose any more limbs,” Shuri says harshly, before he leaves. “I cannot put much more metal in your body before I might as well build you a new one.”

Then she hugs him fiercely, so he figures she must really be concerned. It makes affection bloom warm in his chest as he pats her awkwardly on the back.

“Do not crash my plane, either,” she calls as he buckles himself in. He gives her a sloppy salute, and takes off.

With Wakandan tech, the flight is about half as long as it would normally be. The sun is beginning to set as he lands the plane in a national park about a day’s walk from the city. The plane camouflages itself, blending in nearly seamlessly into the wilderness. Bucky’s wearing civilian clothes with his weapons collapsed and packed away in a backpack. One of the communication bracelets that all Wakandans wear is clasped around his wrist though he has it set to remain silent, and Shuri has been instructed by her brother to leave him alone until he contacts Wakanda himself. 

With his dark hair, he fits in well enough in Mexico. Bucky hitchhikes into the city, thanking the driver quietly and leaving a few pesos. He hasn’t used his Spanish in two decades and doesn’t want to speak much to locals until he sounds a little less American.

Bucky finds out that Romanoff is with Steve when she tries to garrote him in the alley across the road from the building they’re staying in. He flips them and pins her to the wall, flesh hand across her throat.

“Barnes,” she says, acknowledging. He lets her down. Her hair has been bleached blonde, instead of its usual red. “You’re looking defrosted.”

He taps his forehead with two of the metal fingers. Romanoff’s eyebrows rise at the new arm, sleeker and darker than the last one. “All me, up here,” he says. “Doc let me off my leash.”

“The king wants to know where we are,” Romanoff translates. Bucky nods. He knew he liked her; she was smart. “Wilson’s in there,” she says, nodding at the building. “We’ve lost track of Rogers.”

Bucky blinks, not panicking.

“Cartel managed to get ahold of him,” Romanoff shrugs. “Knocked him out with enough tranquilizers to put down a horse.”

“How long ago was this?” Bucky asks. He’s already digging through this bag, snapping guns into place.

“God, there’s two of them,” Romanoff mutters. “Eighteen hours ago. Get inside before someone decides to shoot you.”

He follows her into the rundown building to the fourth floor, where she knocks in a complicated rhythm. Wilson opens, looking tired and a little scruffy, with three visible weapons on his person. He does a double take when he sees Bucky.

“Son of a bitch,” he sighs, and shoos them in, locking the door. 

“So you know where he is and you’re just sitting here?” Bucky says half an hour later, plates of his left arm shifting threateningly as he clenches his fist. 

“They have more guns than us,” Romanoff says, like that’s all that there is to consider here. Wilson, at least, has the decency to look troubled. “We’ve decided to give him 24 hours to punch himself out.”

While logically, Bucky knows that’s a good plan, he starts to assemble the rest of his guns anyway. He’s pulled on tac gear and has six knives on his person, three of them vibranium.

“Is there any hope of getting you to calm the fuck down?” Wilson asks. He sounds exhausted, and Bucky takes a moment to feel bad about that before he straps an assault rifle across his back.

“Nope,” Bucky says.

Xxxx

Bucky Barnes sits alone outside a dull green canvas tent under the bright light of a full moon. It is frigid cold, but Bucky only feels it in the way he feels anything these days; distant, as though through a two way mirror. He is starving.

In his hand is a knife, glinting in the silver moonlight. He draws it across his left forearm, the dull, cold bite of the metal making him shiver down to his bones. Blood wells to the surface of his skin, and Bucky watches, mesmerized as it drips down his wrist and into the snow. He doesn’t notice when Agent Carter appears beside him until she gently wraps her fingers around the knife hanging loosely in his right hand, pulling it out of his grasp. Gingerly, she lowers herself onto the snow at his side. Together they watch as the cut on his arm knits itself closed, leaving a thin pink line.

“Does he know?” she asks quietly. Bucky stares at the scar, at the blood still on his arm, at the pink snow.

“I wasn’t sure,” Bucky says, and hates how his voice breaks.

“I’m not talking about your arm, Sergeant Barnes,” Carter says quietly. Bucky laughs, a little manically, because  _ of course _ .

“They strapped me to that goddamn table and I knew I was gonna die,” he says, and wipes aways a few tears that escape his eyes. Bucky blinks up at the sky, at the moon and stars. “And Steve came and saved me like some sort of  _ fucking _ angel and I didn’t. I ain’t gonna get another savior, next time, I’m just gonna die trying to return the favor.”

Bucky lets out a breath that feels like a sob and scrubs his hands through his hair.

“No, he doesn’t know. Not about any of it. He’s never gonna know.”

“Sergeant-” Carter starts.

“Ma’am, don’t push it,” Bucky whispers. “Please, allow me this.”

“Call me Peggy, Barnes, I think we’ve come that far,” Carter sighs. She pulls out a flask and takes a long swig, then passes it to him. He chuckles and copies her, and doesn’t tell her to call him Bucky.

There is a mission tomorrow.

Xxxx

_ (interlude) _

_ “Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice,” Peggy says. Steve looks up at her with those blue, blue eyes, so put together yet falling apart at the seams, and her heart breaks for the two of them, what could have been. _

_ And then Peggy knows, suddenly and with the certainty of her very soul, why James Barnes would die for Steve Rogers when thousands of men line up to die for Captain America. _

Xxxx

Bucky travels silently over rooftops and through alleys to the warehouse Romanoff and Wilson had pointed out. Across the street, there is a tequila bar with a mariachi band playing loudly out front. Clearly for tourists. These people like to hide in plain sight.

He slips through a window on the top floor, creeping silently through empty rooms. When he has nearly reached the fifth floor, he begins to hear faint murmuring at the end of the hall. There are six guards stationed on the floor, and Romanoff was right that they have more guns than her and Wilson. Speaking of, he can hear the beginning sounds of a firefight on the first floor, so they must have decided to make an appearance.

The guards are ultimately not difficult to take out, even with one close call during which Bucky had to snap an AR-15 in half, and then it’s just Bucky and a locked door at the end of a empty hallway. He kicks it in before he can think too hard about it.

Steve is sitting in the corner, cuffed at the ankles and to a pipe and slumped against a wall, awake but staring into the middle distance. There’s dried blood on his face and matting his beard, startling even though the wound is almost certainly healed. He doesn’t react when Bucky crouches in front of him except to lean his head back and squeeze his eyes shut.

“Jesus Christ, Steve,” he mutters as he snaps the cuffs. Not even reinforced metal, just good old police-issue.

“Go away,” Steve mumbles. “Leave me alone.”

“Yeah, no,” Bucky snaps. “Can you stand?”

Steve allows himself to be pulled to his feet and together they stumble their way out of the building. There is still gunfire coming from the front so Bucky takes them out a back exit. Steve punches a straggling guard before Bucky can get a chance, which is… probably a good sign.

“Here,” Bucky says once they reach a quiet alley, pulling a canteen out of one of his pockets. “Drink it all, slowly. You’re enough a fucking mess without adding vomit to the picture.”

Steve dutifully drains the canteen, but his pupils remain dilated and unfocused. Bucky sighs and rips off a strip of cloth from the shirt he’s wearing underneath his vest, then pulls out another canteen, getting the cloth wet. He dabs at Steve’s face, following muscle memory more than anything.

“Your hair is so long. Your ma would roll,” he says after a few moments of silence, when most of the blood is gone.

“You’re one to talk,” Steve says absently, then frowns.

“Point,” Bucky mutters. “Come on, let’s go.”

Xxxx

The Soldier has a mission in 1963 that takes him the United States. It is the first time he has ever been to there, to his knowledge, and yet the handlers do not have him practice his English beforehand. This is odd, because The Soldier does not remember ever speaking English.

But when he lands in Dallas, the language springs easily to his lips. The streets are overcrowded as he makes his way to the rendezvous point; one man in a hurry knocks into The Soldier with his briefcase, causing The Soldier to say  _ hey, watch it _ and the man to look at him strangely over his shoulder. The Soldier thinks for a panicked second that he’s been made before realizing it was because of whatever he’d said.

The handlers in America speak English to him as well, though all of them have bland and unidentifiable accents. When one of the men asks him to report on his arrival, he tentatively does so in English even though it feels wrong to do in anything other than Russian.

“Why does he sound like they pulled him straight out of the burrough?” a doctor whispers to the man who appears to be in charge, barely loud enough for The Soldier to hear. The Soldier frowns, confused.

It doesn’t matter. A bullet goes through the head of the President the next day regardless.

Xxxx

Bucky bullies Romanoff and Wilson into coming back to Wakanda with promises of weapons and medical supplies. Or rather, he bullies Romanoff. Wilson can’t get on the plane fast enough.

By the time they reach Wakanda, Steve is lucid enough to sulk over the check up Wilson’s subjecting him to and to trade insults with Romanoff that have no heat behind them. The only real indicator that something’s off is Steve’s refusal to even acknowledge Bucky’s existence.

Bucky pushes the concern to the back of his mind as one of the Dora Milaje leads them to Shuri’s lab. Bucky has decided to operate under the assumption that any one of T’Challa’s terrifying army of women could kick his ass at any given time, so he tries to speak politely to them. 

Shuri is waiting in her lab, as she always seems to be, tinkering with something small and silver. Bucky sees her sharp eyes track over Steve, with his too-wide pupils, and mutters something under her breath. Then she proceeds to inform Wilson of the technological failings of his wings and trips into a table upon noticing Romanoff.

“I am a big fan of the way you can kill a man with your thighs,” Shuri says, holding her hand out in front of herself. Bucky thinks she might be blushing.

Romanoff, amused, bows her head and shakes the princess’ hand firmly. Bucky catches Wilson’s eye and finds his own amusement mirrored there. They both look away.

“My brother will be down soon,” Shuri says. Romanoff tenses, but Shuri waves her off as she begins to set up some equipment. “He has been electrocuted before, and doubtlessly will be again. Let’s move over here.”

Wilson, who Steve is half-leaning on, pushes him in the direction of Shuri’s table. Steve walks, remarkably steady, and sits down. Shuri introduces herself and he allows her to take his blood, only after she promises to burn it when she’s done. It’s several minutes before one of the machines starts incessantly beeping. Shuri is reading, nodding to herself, when T’Challa enters. He silently stands beside Bucky after nodding in greeting to Steve, Romanoff, and Wilson.

“You’ll be fine, Captain Rogers. Your metabolism should burn out the rest of the barbiturates within the night,” Shuri is saying.

“There are rooms ready. Nareema will show you the way,” T’Challa says. A guard steps up behind him, appearing seemingly out of nowhere, nods at T’Challa, and leads Romanoff and Wilson away. Neither Bucky or Steve make a move to leave. 

Slowly, Bucky lowers himself on the table beside Steve. The metal arm is nearly silent, unlike the last one, but there is still a soft hum that he usually doesn’t notice; here, with six inches and seventy years between him and Steve, he feels it with his whole body, to the tips of his toes. 

“It’s stupid,” Steve mutters, eventually. He runs a hand through his hair, making a face when it gets caught in a knot.

“Lot of shit’s stupid,” Bucky says. Shuri has not-so-subtly dragged her brother to the opposite side of the wall. They are talking very quickly and in Xhosa, while she flicks through schematics on a hologram.

“Whatever they gave me,” Steve clarifies. “Made me see things. Hear things. You.”

“Withdrawal,” Bucky says. “Fucks with your head.”

“You’re awake,” Steve says. He touches the arm, two fingers dragging along the wrist. The new arm ( _ his  _ new arm) can feel like HYDRA’s arm couldn’t; not like a regular arm, no pain, but heat, pressure. Shuri had angrily explained that HYDRA had decided not to include feeling, even though they could have. Just another method of isolation for The Soldier. Bucky understands why, now. He feels Steve’s fingers down to his bones and has to hide a shiver.

“I’m awake,” Bucky confirms. “Fixed.”

“Thank you for coming after me,” Steve murmurs. His eyes are dark, fathomless, ancient. Bucky wants, for a dizzying second, to exist inside them.

“Always,” Bucky says, and wonders if Steve can hear all the words twisted up in those two syllables.

Xxxx

1995, Siberia. The Soldier has been out of cryostasis for two weeks. 

In front of him there are four lines of little girls, dressed in ballet clothes with their hair pulled back tightly. They watch him with a awed sort of reverence as he prowls around the perimeter of the room. He has been given no instructions, only sent in. He was only given one gun.

The Soldier uses it to shatter one of the mirrors that line the walls. Only one of the girls flinches, a tiny slip of a thing with dark red hair. He crouches before her and she stares back with big, terrified green eyes, but she looks defiant at the same time, in a way she doubtlessly doesn’t understand. Her eyes make him feel strange.

“What is your name?” he asks softly.

“Natalia,” she whispers.

“Natalia,” The Soldier repeats. “Use your fear. Let it burn. It will serve you well.”

“Are you afraid?” Natalia breathes, so softly that he would not hear if not for his enhanced hearing.

“Always,” The Soldier replies. “And I am the strongest weapon in the world.”

He is put back in cryo an hour later.

Xxxx

Bucky isn’t sure where T’Challa had shown Romanoff and Wilson to and can’t seem to find them, so he sets Steve up in his own suite and shoves him into the shower. He paces and listens to the water run, feels an incredible urge to laugh.

The only way Bucky’s ever gonna die is if someone finally manages to kill him, and when he does he sure as anything isn’t going to any sort of heaven; he’s known this for decades, since long before The Soldier. But here, with the rolling plains of Wakanda stretching infinitely beyond the huge windows of the suite, he feels strangely ethereal, untethered to anyone or anything but Steve.

Steve emerges from the shower looking slightly  like a wet dog, dressed in black sweatpants and a black sweatshirt that Bucky doesn’t remember leaving there. He’s not shaved or cut his hair. Steve stares, over Bucky’s shoulder, through the window.

“It’s beautiful,” he says, fingers twitching like he’s looking for a pencil.

“Yeah,” Bucky replies, but doesn’t turn around. He becomes abruptly aware of the fact that he’s dressed in tac gear and fumbles with the catches of his vest, taking out his knives and lining them up on the dresser. Ridiculously, Bucky can feel himself blushing and is glad it’s hidden behind his hair. This is the first time he has been alone with Steve in nearly eighty years when there was no identifiable enemy looming in the background, and that’s bound to change any day, any second, Bucky feels it. Old soldiers, the two of them, always prepping for the next battle, even in these hazy moments of peace.

He finally manages to wrestle the vest off, exposing his torn shirt underneath. Bucky takes that off too, not embarrassed but extremely aware of the scars that twist across his torso. There is a moment of breathless eye contact where Bucky feels like he might just cease to exist, before he retreats to shower. He does so quickly, with the water as hot as it will go, scrubs the dirt and sweat and blood from his skin until it’s pink and raw.

Bucky ties a towel around his waist and goes to dig around in the closet. He eventually finds a gray t-shirt that he throws on over dark sweatpants, then makes his way back out into the bedroom like one might walk into a lion’s den.

Steve is sitting on the bed ( _ one bed, holy shit _ ), lost in his head. Bucky sits down cautiously beside him and wonders where he is, when he is, and waits.

“I wasn’t here,” Steve says after what must be half an hour. A muscle in his jaw ticks. “When they woke you up.”

“None of that,” Bucky says, perhaps a little harshly. “Don’t you fucking start with that.”

“Buck—“

“I ain’t been awake more than a month,” Bucky says. “You chased after me for two years because I was too much of a coward to let you find me.”

Steve looks frustrated, like two years doesn’t mean a thing to him. Maybe it doesn’t, anymore, not when you’ve seen the world change like they have.

It feels like they are hanging on the edge of a cliff they’ve been approaching since 1925, when they were just kids in a back alley with busted knuckles and not a cent to their names. And then the moment breaks, Steve shakes his head and smiles, just a little at the corner of his mouth, and Bucky aches with all of his 101 years.

Xxxx

“Hold still,” Steve chides gently from where he’s standing in between Bucky’s knees. Bucky grins from his place on the counter, lopsided and definitely drunk, and licks the blood off his teeth. Steve huffs and pours iodine onto a cloth, pressing it to Bucky’s brow and making him wince.

“Why’d you do this?” Steve asks, prodding at his nose. It doesn’t feel broken to Bucky, but then again he’s still riding high on adrenaline.

“You’re one to talk there, Rogers,” Bucky shoots back.

“Not an answer, Barnes,” Steve returns, easy as anything.

“Pretty girl,” he says. “Boyfriend. You know how it is.”

Steve stares, incredulous, because obviously he doesn’t, Steve would never go to a bar and chase another man’s girl. Steve’s honorable like that. Honest. Would be a hell of a husband to some lucky woman, one day.

Bucky feels the urge to go hit something again.

This is what he doesn’t say:  _ I coulda gotten outta there with nothing more than bruised knuckles, but instead I let him hit me, didn’t protect my face like I’m always telling you to and instead threw my punches wild and reckless. There’s somethin’ broken inside me Stevie, I swear, something that burns when I look at you, something that’ll eat away at my guts until there isn’t anything left. There’s talk of war on the horizon and when it comes, I’m gonna have to leave you behind. I don’t want to find out what I am without you. _

“You shoulda seen the other guy,” Bucky says, with a smirk and a cocky shrug of his shoulders. Steve scoffs and shoves him off to get cleaned up.

Xxxx

Bucky is prowling the halls in the dead of night, trying not to feel exhausted. The Dora Milaje tend to leave this wing alone, but he has no doubt several would come running if he tried anything.

“Why are you afraid?” Romanoff asks, silently appearing at his side. He nearly stabs her, knife sliding into his hand by reflex, but he stops himself before he can even raise his arm. She raises her hands slightly, palms open, and takes a half step back.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” Bucky says, after a moment when he has his breath back.

“To let yourself love him,” she says, cocking her head to the side. 

He blinks slowly, and remains silent. Romanoff chuckles to herself. “Oh, озимый,” she sighs. “Both of you are blind.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, not knowing why. “Yeah.”

“Someone once told me to use my fear. It was good advice.”

“Natalia,” Bucky says, shocked, gears whirring in his head. 

“It’s Natasha, now,” she says, though she seems surprised. “I can’t believe you remember that.”

Bucky smiles, self deprecating, and taps a finger to his head. “My memory is perfect,” he says. She smiles.

“Take your own advice, Barnes,” Natasha says as she saunters away.

“Bucky,” he says. “Call me Bucky.” She looks over her shoulder and nods, then disappears.

“Fuck,” Bucky breathes, as he slides down against a wall. He doesn’t move for a long time.

Xxxx

For the first time in ten years, Bucky prays, strapped to that table, Zola pumping him full of chemicals that make his blood boil and burn.  _ Ave Maria, gratia plena, what is there left to save? Dominis tecum, but is He with me? _

He doesn’t realize he’s speaking out loud until one of Zola’s grunts laughs at him, sneering, and then he goes back to rank name serial, over and over, a prayer of its own.

But still, lurking in the back of his mind:  _ Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, I don’t think I can pray this much sin away. _

Xxxx

Bucky eventually finds his way back to the suite, the one that has been silently agreed upon to be theirs. They never sleep at the same time, are rarely even in the room at the same time. Bucky feels like he’s breaking some sort of covenant when he silently unlaced his boots and lays down next to Steve on top of the covers. 

Predictably, Steve rolls over and stares at him, eyes glinting by the moonlight. There is an edge to him, sharpened by the whole ordeal with Stark but formed by American steel back in ‘42, that Bucky still marvels at. Steve looks as soft as he ever does here, in this too big and too soft bed, and he still looks like Bucky could tell him to suit up and get fighting and be unsurprised.

“I’m tired,” Bucky whispers, because that’s the God’s honest truth. “I’m old and I’m so fucking tired.”

“Then sleep,” Steve replies, simple as anything.

“I don’t—“ Bucky says, frustrated with his own inability to force the right words out. Eventually, or perhaps inevitably, he thinks  _ fuck it _ , and presses his mouth to Steve’s. It’s not even a kiss, really, he pulls back so quickly it might not of even happened at all. 

“Yeah?” Steve asks, just one syllable.

“Yeah,” Bucky replies, hoarse. Steve nods to himself in the low light and kisses him, Christ Almighty, really kisses him, hands in Bucky’s hair and beard scraping against his jaw. Bucky makes a completely involuntary sound in his throat that would be embarrassing if he bothered to give a damn when Steve bites gently on his lower lip, but he coincidentally can’t be bothered to give a damn so he loops an arm around Steve’s shoulders and presses them flush together, close as he can get. Bucky’s never wanted to get inside someone else’s skin like this before, and the need hits like a stab between his ribs. 

It’s rough in a way a first kiss probably shouldn’t be, but then again it doesn’t feel like a first kiss in any way that matters, not with a century tying them together. Somehow Steve’s wound up on top of Bucky, pressing him down into the mattress; Bucky gives as good as he gets, tongues curling around each other and one of his hands fisted in Steve’s hair, but still feels like he’s along for the ride.

Unfortunately, even supersoldiers have a pesky need for oxygen that ultimately wins out over Bucky’s strong desire to never let Steve go. They breathe each other’s air for a minute, foreheads pressed together and lips nearly brushing.

“Ninety years, goddamnit,” Bucky laughs breathlessly. This moment is unreal, unbound by reality.

“Didn’t know what I was missing ‘til it was gone,” Steve breathes, pressing a kiss to the juncture of of Bucky’s jaw and neck. 

“Jesus,” Bucky mutters, and crashes their mouths together again.

Xxxx

( _ the beginning _ ) 

_ Steve can taste copper and salt, lips bloody from a broken nose, and is preparing himself for more when out of nowhere a brown blur starts throwing punches. The older kids who were picking on him go running, and the blur turns into a boy, with big blue eyes and dark hair that fell onto his face. _

_ “What’s your name?” the boy asks. He’s got one of his bottom teeth missing, so he can’t be far from Steve’s age. Steve’s missing one of his bottom teeth. _

_ “Steve Rogers,” he says to the boy as he accepts help up. “And you?” _

_ “James Buchanan Barnes,” the boy replies, nose wrinkled like the name smells bad. Steve wonders why he says the whole thing, then. “Call me Bucky.” _

Xxxx

Bucky’s face is rubbed red from the nose down the next morning, already fading as he enters Shuri’s lab. She snorts as soon as she notices him.

“Took you long enough,” she says, and turns back to where she’s working on new wings for Wilson. He grins and flips her off, a gesture she returns without looking up.

Xxxx

_ Fin. _

 

**Author's Note:**

> No affiliation with Marvel or the Marvel Cinematic Universe, obviously. 
> 
> Acknowledgements go to the heartbreaking fic series Not Easily Conquered, which I read in its entirety during the two days I wrote this. Also credit to the Black Panter movie, which motivated me to finally get off my ass and write some Marvel fic as I have been meaning to do for about a year.


End file.
